Students boo ex-Google CEO for praising AI at graduation speech
A graduation commencement speech by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t impress students who are increasingly worried about AI’s impact on their future.
Image by Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images
A graduation commencement speech by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t impress students who are increasingly worried about AI’s impact on their future.
Schmidt, who was in charge of tech giant Google for a decade, compared the transformative impact of the computer with that of AI during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona.
He said the transformation will affect “any profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship.”
As Schmidt’s remarks drew boos from the audience, he tried to soften the situation by saying he understood the fear many students felt.
“There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear,” he continued.
Schmidt insisted that the future is not yet decided, urging students not to “surrender their agency” and to be the ones who build it.
“The question is not whether AI will shape the world – it will. The question is whether you will help shape AI,” he said, provoking another round of boos.
As younger generations are increasingly worried about AI – 48% of Gen Zers say the risks of the technology outweigh the benefits – this is already the second time that mentioning AI in a graduation commencement speech angered students.
Florida businesswoman Gloria Caulfield was booed at the University of Central Florida after calling AI “the next industrial revolution.”
Younger generations may have a good reason to believe AI is writing the future without them. Employment for workers aged 22-25 sharply declined in fields most exposed to AI, such as customer service, data entry, and coding, according to a recent study.
However, growing anti-AI sentiment appears not to be limited to Gen Z. According to a recent NBC News poll, 46% of registered voters in the US hold negative views of AI, making it the topic more disliked than the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
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